The Queen's Birthday 2018 Honours List, released yesterday, revealed Dr Paul Wood (FTSE) has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to science, and to global human and animal health, and through biopharmaceutical research and technological advances.”
AusBiotech’s incoming CEO, Lorraine Chiroiu, said: “This recognition of Prof Wood’s contribution to life sciences is very well deserved and a fitting vote of thanks for his significant and successful efforts.”
“In addition to Prof Wood’s contribution through a distinguished career in the life sciences, he has provided visionary leadership in the industry, as well paying an instrumental role in the development of a program for the mentoring of PhD students to prepare them for entry into industry roles.”
Prof Wood is the Chair of the AusBiotech AusAg and Food Advisory Group and the AusAg and Food Summit program committee – positions that he holds as part of his volunteer contribution to the agricultural biotechnology sector.
Co-founder of the Industry Mentoring Network in STEM (IMNIS), an initiative of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), Prof Wood established the program with his wife Ms Ronnie Wood, Dr Tony Radford AO, and Mr John Kirby AM. The IMNIS mentoring program, supported by MTP Connect and managed by AusBiotech, is leading the way in giving PhD students a better understanding of the commercial and industrial world of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
At CSIRO, Prof Wood was Leader of the TB Diagnostic and Vaccine Development program, where he developed the platform TB diagnostic technology successfully commercialised by CSL and the Australian company, Cellestis and now marketed by QIAGEN. He has previously shared a number of awards for this research including the CSIRO medal, ASM Diagnostic award and in 2013, The Clunies Ross Award.
Prof Wood was Deputy-Director of the CRC for Vaccine Technology from 1993-2000 and has published over 100 scientific papers. In 1997, he became Vice President, Global Research and Development in Animal Health at CSL, and in 2004 joined Pfizer AH as Senior Director, A/NZ Biologicals R&D. He became Pfizer’s Executive Director of Global Discovery in the USA in 2008 where he led the team for pharmaceutical and biological products and later became an Adjunct Professor at Monash University, and a Director of a start-up company Nexvet Biopharma. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE). He is on the Board of Women in STEMM Australia, the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines, Dairy Australia and on the Scientific Advisory Board for AACo. He is also a consultant to the Agriculture program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.